The interaction between human subjects and environment is studied in detail. The task is a hill-climbing problem in which the hill is simply a randomly pivoting ramp function. The human varies two quantities, x sub 1 and x sub 2, while he observes changes in a third quantity z. Constraints are imposed upon the manipulation of x sub 1 and x sub 2, and upon the slope and possible orientation of the ramp; also, transition probabilities are introduced which govern the rotation of the ramp from one orientation to another. Assumptions concerning the mechanism of human choice behavior in this situation lead to the development of a single-parameter stochastic behavioral model. The expected performance of the model is compared with the experimentally determined average performance of human subjects. The results indicate that human adaptive strategy is essentially stochastic but is better described by a three-parameter model than by a single-parameter model; and certain nonstochastic elements in human adaptive strategy enable human subjects to consistently exceed the performance of both the single- and three-parameter stochastic models by a small margin, especially in highly variable environments. (Author).

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

Rooted in the study of chaos and complexity, Adaptive Action introduces a simple, common sense process that will guide you and your organization into reflective action. This elegant method prompts readers to engage with three deceptively simple questions: What? So what? Now what? The first leads to careful observation. The second invites you to thoughtfully consider options and implications. The third ignites effective action. Together, these questions and the tools that support them produce a dynamic and creative dance with uncertainty. The road-tested steps of adaptive action can be used to devise solutions and improve performance across multiple challenges, and they have proven to be scalable from individuals to work groups, from organizations to communities. In addition to laying out the adaptive action framework and clear protocols to support it, Glenda H. Eoyang and Royce J. Holladay introduce best practices from exemplary professionals who have used adaptive action to meet personal, professional, and political challenges in leadership, consulting, Alzheimer's treatment, evaluation, education reform, political advocacy, and cultural engagement—readying readers to employ this new toolkit to meet their own goals with a sense of ingenuity and flexibility.

The facilitation of knowledge work or what is increasingly known as "Case Management" represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to fully support knowledge workers within the workplace is not new. What's new is that recent advances in Information Technology now make the management of unpredictable circumstances a practical reality. There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. The facilitation of knowledge work or what is increasingly known as "Case Management" represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to fully support knowledge workers within the workplace is not new. What's new is that recent advances in Information Technology now make the management of unpredictable circumstances a practical reality. There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. Here are examples of what recognized experts have have recently written on the topic: Advancing to support more knowledge work is the goal of many organizations, thus there is a new groundswell of activity around unstructured processes. - Jim Sinur, VP of Research, Gartner I think a sea change is coming in the process world. -Connie Moore, Research Vice President, Forrester The sea of change Moore refers to is about technology that is able to support knowledge workers. The work of a knowledge worker is by its nature unpredictable and can not be handled by more formalized process definition techniques. For executives and managers of knowledge workers, "Mastering the Unpredictable" will: Explain the need and why previous technological approaches don't meet the need Explain the current technology gap, and the new technology that can close the gap Lay out the options that can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations Equip them to best take advantage of this evolving trend"

Taming the Unpredictable Real World Adaptive Case Management: Case Studies and Practical Guidance "The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity." Peter F Drucker The core element of Adaptive Case Management (ACM) is the support for real-time decision-making by knowledge workers. Taming the Unpredictable presents the logical starting point for understanding how to take advantage of ACM. This book goes beyond talking about concepts, and delivers actionable advice for embarking on your own journey of ACM-driven transformation. In award-winning case studies covering industries as a diverse as law enforcement, transportation, insurance, banking, legal services, and healthcare, you will find instructive examples for how to transform your own organization.

This book introduces students to cultural anthropology with an emphasis on environmental and evolutionary approaches, focusing on how humans adapt to their environment and how the environment shapes culture. It shows how cultures evolve within the context of people’s strategies for surviving and thriving in their environments.This approach is widely used among scholars as a cross-disciplinary tool that rewards students with valuable insights into contemporary developments. Drawing on anthropological case studies, the authors address immediate human concerns such as the costs and consequences of human energy requirements, environmental change and degradation, population pressure, social and economic equity, and planned and unplanned change. Impacts of increasingly rapid climatic change on equitable access to resources and issues of human rights are discussed throughout. Towards the end of the book the student is drawn into a challenging thought experiment addressing the possible impacts of climatic warming on Middle America in the year 2040. All chapters conclude with "Summary," "Key Terms," and "Suggested Readings." This book is an ideal text for students of introductory anthropology and archaeology, environmental studies, world history, and human and cultural ecology courses.

This bibliography contains unclassified abstracts of selected Technical Documentary Reports issued by the Decision Sciences Laboratory, Electronics System Division, Air Force Systems Command, during 1954 through 1962. The major areas comprising the Laboratory's mission are the perform ance of behavioral science research, development, and testing to advance command and control system technology, and the implementation of research findings to improve the design and performance of Command and Control Systems. The bibliography contains three indices, cross-referencing the reports by author, by organization, and by specialized categories: (1) Statistics, Measurements and Methods, (2) Psychophysical Research (Audition and Vision), (3) Perception and Cognition, (4) Learning and Training, (5) Group Processes, (6) Psycholinguistics, (7) Systems Research (Design and Analysis, Human Engineering, Personnel, Test and Evaluation, Training), (8) Bibliographies, Handbooks, and Indexes, and (9) Equipment. (Author).

Global warming continues to gain importance on the international agenda and calls for action are heightening. Yet, there is still controversy over what must be done and what is needed to proceed. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming describes the information necessary to make decisions about global warming resulting from atmospheric releases of radiatively active trace gases. The conclusions and recommendations include some unexpected results. The distinguished authoring committee provides specific advice for U.S. policy and addresses the need for an international response to potential greenhouse warming. It offers a realistic view of gaps in the scientific understanding of greenhouse warming and how much effort and expense might be required to produce definitive answers. The book presents methods for assessing options to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, offset emissions, and assist humans and unmanaged systems of plants and animals to adjust to the consequences of global warming.

Consider that you were asked how to ensure human survival. Where would you begin? Conservation of resources jumps to mind. We need to conserve resources in order that economic activities may continue. Alas, this is a false start. Resources are always defined by a given economic system, and only it determines what is and what is not a resource. Therefore, conserving resources implies only the perpetua tion of the appropriate economic system. Conservation of resources as we know them has nothing to do with the survival of mankind, but it has very much to do with the survival of the industrial system and society we live in today. We have to start, therefore, at a more basic level. This level, some may argue, is addressed by ensuring for human beings "clean genes. " Again, this is a mistaken beginning. It is thoroughly mistaken-for reasons of science. It is a false start because malfunctioning organs and morphological structures are not only due to deleterious hereditary factors but particularly due to unfavorable environments during early growth and development. Moreover, eugenics is not acceptable to any but a small fraction of society. Eugenics may not be irrelevant to our future, but is premature and should be of little concern until we understand how human genes and environment interact.